The rate and efficacy of organizational and interorganizational problem
solving in complex, uncertain environments may be increased through structured
information processes and appropriate uses of current information technology.
This increased capacity for interorganizational problem solving may then
be incorporated into policy and practice to increase the efficiency of
international crisis management. The present analysis will, first, review
briefly the major theoretical perspectives on organizational decision
processes in uncertain environments and propose a rationale for continuing
inquiry. Second, it will assess the characteristics, strengths and limitations
of current information technology as a means of facilitating decision processes
for practicing managers engaged in interorganizational disaster operations.
Finally, it will examine the potential benefits, liabilities and requirements
for integrating information technology into international crisis management
and policy.

In the urgent context of disaster, actions are taken without calculating
cost until the critical phase of life-threatening danger is past. But in
the aftermath, questions of effectiveness, efficiency, and timeliness in
disaster operations are asked again. Disaster managers, searching for ways
to improve their effectiveness, are hindered by a critical lack of information
and/or means of communicating it in timely manner to the relevant parties
to coordinate appropriate response. Problems of efficiency in organizational
action directly affect the capacity of the community to respond in disaster.

Decision processes in disaster environments defy ordinary rules of rational
analysis and organizational performance (March and Weissinger-Baylon, 1986;
Comfort, 1986, 1988). The context of action is too uncertain and the elements
of planning are too ambiguous for the development of detailed, specific
strategies to guide action effectively in crisis. The critical task is
to identify the factors that increase the capacity of organizations to
solve problems under stress, the factors that inhibit this process in
actual disaster events and the points of interaction between the two sets.
To address this task, we need to examine both the modes of analysis and
the design of organizational decision processes in disaster environments.
This paper will examine three aspects of the problem: 1) the means of inquiry
to support decision making in disaster environments; 2) the interaction
between the disaster environment and decision processes in actual operations;
and 3) the potential of information technology to facilitate decision processes
in the environment of disaster.

Organizational Decision Processes Under Conditions of Uncertainty

Four major perspectives on organizational performance under conditions
of uncertainty have emerged from practice and research. These are command
and control, organizational anarchy, evolutionary learning, and organizational
problem solving. Each will be reviewed briefly to present the research
traditions that have informed this analysis.

Command and Control

Military training and tradition exemplifies most aptly the concept of
'command and control' (Train, 1986; Weissinger-Baylon, 1986; Crecine, 1986),
but it is also reflected in the hierarchical design of authority structures
and highly specified tasks of "tightly coupled systems" in the
administrative science literature (Taylor, 1911, 1967; Gilbreth, 1917,
1973; Perrow, 1972). The principle of `command and control' is clear specification
of the authority relationships among subunits in order to increase control
over performance of the whole organization. It is largely a deterministic
model, and seeks to reduce uncertainty in organizational performance
through detailed plans and training. While this organizational design has
proven functional and robust in well-structured, routine conditions, it
is weakest in uncertain, dynamic conditions. In these complex environments,
it is vulnerable to "lock out," (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990:136)
or the exclusion of relevant information from the decision process. In
disaster management, organizations with legal responsibilities for first
response -- police, fire, emergency medical services -- operate primarily
with a command and control orientation in training and field action.
Field commanders have recognized the weaknesses of this orientation in
the complex, dynamic conditions of disaster. Extensive efforts have been
made to adapt the strengths of command and control principles to disaster
environments, where common training and skills enable multiple units to
work readily in coordinated action, but flexibility is needed for rapid
response. For example, the US Forest Service developed the "Incident
Command System," a widely used adaptation that is accepted by emergency
response services across the US.

Organized Anarchy

A second major perspective views organizational decision making largely
as "organized anarchy" (Cohen, March and Olsen, 1972). Under
conditions of uncertainty and ambiguity, the authors assert that organizational
decision making is not a rational process determined by careful planning,
but rather one that is strongly influenced by the limitations of human
capacity for attention, timing and the continual flux generated by a dynamic
environment. The model reverses the assumption of organizations operating
in static, well-structured environments and acknowledges demands placed
upon organizational decision processes by conditions of "problematic
preferences, unclear technology and fluid participation" (Cohen,
March and Olsen, 1972:1-2). In such environments, agreement on either goals
or means is difficult to achieve. Without consensus on goals, acknowledgment
of authority becomes largely irrelevant and means of action are unrelated
to specific objectives. Consequently, organizational decisions, when
they occur, are largely accidents of timing and spontaneous recognition
of an appropriate 'fit' between problem, solution and participants.

The capacity to focus attention on external demands and resources from
the environment in an intelligent, timely manner is essential for organizational
problem solving (March, 1988; Cohen, 1986). Cohen (1986:65-66) further
proposes the criterion of "flexibility" in adapting to the demands
and opportunities generated by the environment as a measure of organizational
effectiveness. This flexibility allows participants to recognize novel
solutions emerging from dynamic conditions that may fall outside the previously
defined rules of "command and control."

Recognizing that organizational decision processes may not be fully
nor consistently anarchical, several researchers have used the garbage
can model to examine decision processes in more structured settings (Weiner,
1976; Crecine, 1988; Train, 1988). Train's (1988) characterization of the
stages of organizational decision in battle, acknowledging the constraints
of heavy load and deadlines upon military commanders, offers a useful analogy
to decision making in disaster environments. Disaster managers operate
under similar constraints of heavy load and deadlines, but frequently without
the common skills and orientation of military training.

In comparing the performance characteristics of tightly coupled systems,
such as those in command and control organizations, to those of loosely
coupled systems, such as those characterterized by organizational anarchy,
Crecine (1988: 82-88) notes that both types of systems confront conflicting
goals among participants, cope with uncertainty in the parameters of action,
search for solutions to problems, and engage in organizational learning.
However, the two types of systems cope with uncertainty in fundamentally
different ways, and this difference shapes their performance on other primary
relationships. Tightly coupled systems seek to establish greater control
over their participants and operating conditions in response to unexpected
or ambiguous demands from the environment, restricting organizational attention
to specific problems and solutions. In contrast, loosely coupled systems
acknowledge that previously defined problems may be inaccurate or their
associated rules inappropriate under changing or ambiguous conditions.
These systems relax structural controls on attention and allow the spontaneous
matching of problems, solutions and participants in creative response
to perceived opportunities or needs. Neither type of organization, however,
manages to achieve fully consistent, efficient performance in uncertain
conditions. The difference between the two models lies in their assumptions
about how organizations learn.

Evolutionary Learning

A third major perspective on decision processes in uncertain conditions
emphasizes patterns of evolutionary learning in organizational behavior
(Holland, 1975; Piaget, 1980; Axelrod, 1984; Comfort, 1986; Haas, 1990).
This perspective draws on the theory of adaptation from evolutionary biology
(Holland, 1975), and observes that organizations consistently assess the
consequences of their actions upon their immediate environment and, over
time, will choose alternatives for action that strengthen their chances
of survival. However, time is required for adaptation and the feedback
process driving organizational learning is indirect. Organizations may
learn inappropriate lessons from limited experience and seek to apply those
lessons in a similar context, but obtain very different results.

While the evolutionary learning perspective offers insight for understanding
adaptation in organizational behavior over the long term, it does not meet
the needs of disaster managers who cope with sudden onset events requiring
immediate response. Organizations appear to engage in two types of learning.
First, they assimilate information from experience and the external environment
and store it in their repertoire of possible responses to apply in similar
situations (Newell and Simon, 1972; Argyris, 1982; Piaget, 1980). Second,
more directly related to problem solving, they create knowledge to fit
novel situations (Simon, 1983). Disaster managers urgently need this type
of creative problem solving in the complex, time-dependent context of disaster,
but it is also difficult to achieve at the organizational level.

Organizational Problem Solving

A fourth perspective, organizational problem solving, addresses the
problem of decision making under conditions of uncertainty through the
design (or redesign) of systemic patterns of communication, information
and action (Deutsch, 1963; Churchman, 1971; Lindblom and Cohen, 1979;
Meltsner and Bellavita, 1983). This perspective acknowledges information
as the driving force of organizational action (Deutsch, 1963), and considers
skills in search, processing and utilization of information central to
the design of structures for action (Churchman, 1971; Habermas, 1979;
Burt, 1982).

The goal of the system becomes the organizing framework for collective
action, and the organizational components of the system adjust their actions
to one another and to the environment in terms of their respective understanding
of the systemic goal and its requirements. The organizational system, in
turn, becomes the vehicle for common discovery and transmission of information
from the environment to its constituent parts and back again, enabling
the members to reach a collective goal.

An inquiring system is fundamentally a means of organizing information
and communications processes in order to solve problems for a specific
group. It is goal-seeking, open-ended, enabling and fosters cooperation
among the participating members (Churchman, 1971: 200). This perspective
allows organizations to draw from a wider array of knowledge and resources
than is possible for individuals acting alone, enabling them to address
larger, more difficult and more complex problems.

The difficulty in designing an inquiring system intended to solve a
particular set of problems lies in keeping that system sufficiently open
for continuing, broad information search and processing, but sufficiently
focused to carry out specific action. The system needs to operate simultaneously
at macro and micro levels in the search for, processing and transmission
of, information. At the macro level, decision makers need to view the
entire organization's operation to maintain their focus on the basic goal.
At the micro level, managers need detailed information to plan specific
actions that, cumulatively, achieve the goal for the whole system. Information
about specific units at the micro level is aggregated to inform macro level
policies for the entire organization, while macro level monitoring of
the environment, in turn, provides resources and sets limits on micro level
action. The interaction between the two processes of inquiry is continuous.

This perspective quickly encounters the limits of human information
processing capacity in addressing large, complex problems. Although the
basic ideas have been present in the literature for nearly thirty years,
researchers have not linked information processes with structural designs
for action in consistently successful ways. Shifting the focus on problem
solving from the individual to the organizational level presents problems
of communication and coordination that are significantly more complex and
interactive (Argyris and Schon, 1974, 1978). Descriptive accounts of organizational
networks (Meltsner and Bellavita, 1983) document successful organizational
efforts to achieve specific goals, but these networks become vulnerable
to changes in inputs of individual energy and commitment over time (Bardach,
1977). Current information technology extends human problem solving capacity
through the use of computers and telecommunications, resulting in a problem
solving approach that is strong both technically and organizationally.
While the technical capacity is available to meet the information processing
requirements for large, complex problems, the organizational designs
to establish and utilize these systems productively are not yet defined
or developed.

In summary, information processes drive the decision function in all
four theoretical perspectives, yet the result of these processes differs
in interaction with the structure of the organization. Improving the
technology of information processes in disaster management alters one of
the basic parameters of the "organized anarchy" model, and links
information to action in ways that reduce uncertainty in the disaster environment.
The resulting shift in organizational design, however, requires technical
assistance for the organizational participants to acquire new skills in
the search for, and utilization of, information. Introducing this technology
also creates opportunities to restructure the organization (Goodman,
Sproull and Associates, 1990) and to re-examine the allocation of authority,
attention and resources in disaster operations on the basis of more timely,
accurate and comprehensive information. Such proposed changes are likely
to encounter resistance in established organizations reluctant to yield
accustomed practice, even if unproductive, to unfamiliar technologies (Argyris,
1990; Goodman, Sproull and Associates, 1990). A clear portrayal of the
function of information technology in relation to organizational decision
making in uncertain environments is central to its appropriate use.

The Function of Information Technology in Uncertain Environments

Information technology provides three ways of overcoming some limitations
in human information processing that have long stymied organizational action
in complex environments. First, it allows the creation of an interactive
network for disaster managers (Comfort, Woods and Nesbitt, 1990), facilitating
communication and focusing attention on the same problem at the same time.
Second, information technology allows the representation of information
in graphic form, thus simplifying complex data and increasing the speed
and accuracy of communication (Deutsch, 1963; Simon, 1969, 1981). Third,
information technology allows the development of an 'extended memory' or
knowledge base for a given community, which stores relevant knowledge about
the community and its population and assists managers in quickly formulating
alternative courses of action during a disaster. Each of these functions
has been discussed in detail elsewhere (Comfort, Woods and Nesbitt, 1990).

The three computerized information functions -- interactive communications,
graphic representation and logical inference -- operating together for
a given organization, create a fourth, and vital, capacity to correct organizational
mistakes in a timely manner. This capacity shifts the time perspective
of organizations forward, and encourages participants to review their performance
in order to improve strategies for future action. This capacity for adaptive
response to incoming information, reflected in Cohen's (1988) concept of
'flexibility,' is greatly facilitated by the ease of storage, retrieval
and review of information through a carefully designed knowledge system.
It acknowledges the useful role of error, or deviation from established
rules, in maintaining the effective functioning of the system. Professional
monitoring of errors in a complex, dynamic system provides valuable clues
to possible weaknesses in the system or changes in the environment that
allow necessary adjustment before more serious failure occurs. Like tuning
an orchestra, such monitoring is not construed as a penalizing measure,
but rather as adjusting the 'fit' of the units of the organization to one
another and to the environment improving the performance of the whole.
The value of error hinges on the interpretation of consequences for the
whole organization and its continuing action in the wider environment.

Technology alone does not ensure an increase in an organization's
problem solving capacity. Rather, it provides a means for re-examining
the ways in which organizations seek to solve problems (Goodman, Sproull
and Associates, 1990), thereby enabling conscious efforts to improve the
process. Weick's (1990) concept of parallel information structures, one
within the machine and one within the manager's mind, offers an apt analogy
to the appropriate use of information technology in creative problem solving.
To Weick, the effectiveness of information technology in solving problems
increases to the extent that the manager understands the functions that
are performed by the machine. This condition is especially true for a complex,
interorganizational system engaged in international disaster operations.

The converse is also true: problem solving processes will be useful
only to the extent that they are designed to reflect the desired model
of problem solving within the organization (HayesRoth, Waterman and Lenat,
1983). This point is critical for the design of the knowledge system within
the computer. Logical inferencing techniques, carefully designed, support
the creation of knowledge by practicing managers, whereas search, storage
and retrieval systems provide systematic, reliable confirmation of existing
knowledge. In disaster operations, both techniques are needed, but the
inferencing techniques become increasingly important as urgency and uncertainty
rise.

At the community level, parallel technical and organizational information
systems could be created to support collective problem solving to mitigate
disaster. The relevant characteristics of a community and a community-wide
organizational system would be stored electronically, with a matching mental
model of problem solving tasks, skills and goals stored in the minds of
the responsible managers in that community. The result is a process of
'structuration' (Weick, 1990; Scott, 1990; Barley et al., 1988) or inter
action between the organization and its environment, where thoughts and
actions of members of the community become part of the 'technology' shaping
the organization and its overall capability to solve problems for the community.

The implementation of such a community-wide information system, therefore,
presents both technical and organizational requirements. The organizational
requirements include a willingness on the part of the participants to
learn the conceptual and technical skills essential to participate effectively
in the information system. The rate at which such a system may be imple
mented successfully depends in part upon the community's "absorp
tive capacity," (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990) or ability to absorb new
information and translate it into working knowledge and skills. To implement
a community information system effectively, disaster managers need to adjust
the levels of information and skills needed to operate the technical system
to fit the users' mental skills and knowledge, while encouraging the development
of the users.

The concept of parallel technical and organizational information systems
operating at the community level supports the development of community
capacity to respond effectively to disasters. It suggests a rational ecology
of interacting human, natural and technical systems that may be designed
as a global inquiring system to support international disaster assistance.

A Model for a Global Inquiring System Directed Toward Reducing Seismic
Risk

Seismic risk to human systems can be substantially reduced with the
appropriate design and implementation of information technology. Earthquakes
occur, without warning, in inhabited areas where infrastructure is not
built to withstand the severe shaking. Without adequate preparation for
earthquakes, failure in one technical system triggers failure in others,
as buildings fall, transportation routes collapse, communications jam,
and power lines, water systems and other basic services are disrupted.
As the technical systems fail, they trigger disruptions in organizational,
social and economic systems, producing disaster. Seismic events pose a
special challenge to rational planning, for while earthquakes occur with
known regularity, they occur at great distances around the globe and
outside the timeframe of human memory and organizational planning cycles
in specific locations. For example, moderate earthquakes occur in a given
seismic region every 40 - 60 years; major earthquakes occur every 90 -
150 years (Boutacoff, 1989). Time and distance dull the residents' awareness
to the silent danger of seismic risk. Without planning, communities remain
vulnerable to disaster over the long term.

Building on the concept of community information systems, we may link
a set of such systems designed for communities vulnerable to seismic risk
into a global inquiring system (Churchman, 1971; Comfort, 1991) directed
toward reducing losses in life and property associated with seismic events.
The potential of such a system is shown through professional observation
of disaster operations in a series of seven major earthquakes since 1985.
The set of disasters serves as an example of the destructive interaction
between human and natural systems that may be altered through design.

In each disaster, the source of failure was primarily the lack of adequate
information regarding the interaction between the natural system of earthquake
faults and tectonic plates and the human systems of infrastructure in these
inhabited areas. In each case, the earthquake occurred in a region of known
seismicity, with recorded instances of previous events. The seven disasters
document dramatically a set of ecological relationships gone awry.

Advances in information technology within the last ten years make it
possible to address seismic risk through rational design. While there is
still much work to do, and organizational changes may prove more resistant
than the technical redesign, we can now conceive of a world where developments
in information technology will allow human systems to live in rational
balance with the natural seismicity of the earth, without devastating losses
of life and property. The following model proposes a design for a global
inquiring system to address the problem of risk from the natural seismicity
of the earth to the human systems of community infrastructure and social
organization.

Assertions

Three basic assertions link information technology to organizational
learning, problem solving and action. They reflect the technical capacity
of information systems to reduce ambiguity and uncertainty in information
available to organizations operating in changing conditions. They also
relate organizational learning of the participants to increased clarity
in the portrayal of informed alternatives for choice. These assertions
are:

1. Information technology allows multiple participants in a collective
process to focus attention on a common set of problems, creating timely
access to shared information

2. Ready access to shared information and means of communication increases
the likelihood that participants will choose a common solution against
a perceived threat and cooperate in achieving a common goal

These assertions are stated in general terms, but underly the design
of a global inquiring system to address the problem of seismic risk. The
model makes the following specific assumptions:

1. Information processes and skills serve as the primary means of system
design (Burt, 1982); information technology includes both electronic
and mental processes.

2. An inquiring system operates in parallel technical and organizational
structures on at least two jurisdictional levels, allowing access of the
lower level(s) to wider ranges of resources, knowledge and personnel.

3. Coordination operates on at least three levels:

a. self-adjustment at particular sites on the basis of feedback from
the immediate range of observation, service area and performance

b. global adjustment that integrates information from all affected sites,
areas of operation, and sources

c. intermediate levels of coordination as needed, with units of aggregation
formed to reduce complexity in the global system.

4. The knowledge base for the system is cumulative, accessible to
responsible participants, and organized by three dimensions: function,
discipline, time.

5. The critical measure of performance is time, in response to seismic
threat locally and in reduction of seismic losses globally.

Actors:

The actors in the inquiring system are organizations. The actors are
grouped generically into the following four types by level of administrative
jurisdiction:

3. National Organizations: Public organizations with legal responsibility
for coordinating disaster response or delivering specified public services;
charitable organizations with national networks and constituencies; national
institutions with specialized skills, knowledge and resources

4. International Organizations: Public and charitable organizations
with international service missions; international professional associations
and institutions with specialized skills, knowledge and resources

Organizations participating in the inquiring system may differ from
site to site, but the functions performed at each site are likely to be
similar. Specific organizational participants need to be identified by
administrative level, with their respective functions in disaster operations
indicated both in relation to their immediate administrative level and
to the whole system.

Operating Premises:

Since the inquiring system operates at different administrative levels
simultaneously, the model requires a set of operating premises that allows
interaction of the separate levels, and the organizational units within
them, with a minimum of error. These premises are:

2. The inquiring system is designed to support informed action to reduce
seismic hazards and to respond to disasters within and between jurisdictional
levels, drawing upon available knowledge, resources and skills

3. Participants at all jurisdictional levels know and accept the basic
terminology and concepts of system operation

4. Participants at all levels of administration master basic training
in essential system operating skills

5. Authority relationships between organizations and administrative
levels of jurisdiction are identified, discussed, and agreed upon prior
to actual operations

6. Operations responsibility is allocated in at least three ways to
minimize error:

a. by specialized knowledge, as required at particular sites for specific
disciplines

b. by holistic perspective, as required to manage the entire operation

c. by degree of complexity in operations, allowing the allocation of
operating responsibilities accordingly

7. Mutual adjustment and/or correction of error occurs through feedback
within and between organizations, administrative levels, and throughout
the whole system

8. Operation of the whole system is subject to periodic professional
review, with summary reports to participating clientele

The set of eight premises is intended to focus attention and minimize
operating error both within and between components of the whole system.
Since information processes drive the inquiring system, the quality of
performance depends upon the accuracy, timeliness and comprehensiveness
of information produced by each component and aggregated, in graduated
stages, to the global system.

Anticipated Outcomes:

Anticipated outcomes from an operating inquiring system, both within
local communities and the global system, include:

Assessment of the Model in Terms of Field Observations

The technical capability for a global inquiring system has been demonstrated
in a number of advanced projects, initiated by both scientific and governmental
organizations. A more difficult task is the design of a parallel organizational
model that would span four jurisdictional levels of operation and, facilitated
by information technology, produce significant improvement in organizational
problem solving capacity across the levels.

Treating seven recent earthquake disasters as a longitudinal set of
case studies on disaster operations, it is possible to examine organizational
problem solving performance on four jurisdictional levels over a six-year
period. While a detailed analysis of the full set of disaster operations
is outside the scope of this paper, incidents of organizations adapting
information technology to support problem solving activities are found
in each case. Further, adaptations made in organizational performance
indicate increasing awareness of the potential of information technology
to support organizational decision processes at all four jurisdiction
al levels. A set of representative adaptations from the sequence of disaster
operations are presented briefly below.

Mexico City, September 19, 1985 (M = 8.1)

The impact of information technology on organizational action was
dramatically illustrated during the Mexico City Earthquake by the timely
transmission of news reports of the disaster to international audiences
via satellite communications. The earthquake occurred at 7:19 a.m., and
CBS News telecast reports of the event that evening on the 6:00 p.m. news.
Transmitted to world capitals and family living rooms via international
satellite, news of the disaster quickly generated response from governments,
business organizations, international charitable organizations, and religious
and volunteer groups. While the volume of international disaster assistance
demonstrated great empathy and international good will toward the afflicted
nation, it also created additional burdens on organizational attention,
resources and time in seeking to manage the unsolicted contributions to
disaster operations. The incident illustrates the power of nearly instantaneous
transmission of news via current communications technology in eliciting
worldwide support for disaster-stricken communities, but it also indicates
the larger problem of organizing information, skills and resources to direct
this support efficiently to those in need.

San Salvador, October 10, 1986 (M = 5.4)

During the San Salvador Earthquake operations, two incidents illustrate
the growing importance of information technology in disaster operations
and organizational initiatives to adapt this technology to support decision
processes. The first incident notes the absence of relevant data from previous
seismic events in the policy process. Records show that the Reuben Dario
building, which collapsed in downtown San Salvador killing nearly 300 persons,
had been seriously weakened during an earlier earthquake in 1969. Although
data were available, they were not easily accessible to public managers.
Under conditions of civil war, there was no mechanism for translating known
information about seismic risk into preventive action for the protection
of the community. The organizational capacity to solve a documented engineering
problem had not been developed, nor were information processes established
to support organized action to protect the public from risk. The collapse
of the Reuben Dario building stimulated inquiry into the problem of organizational
memory in a city vulnerable to seismic risk, and raised questions regarding
seismic policy for the community in future years.

A second incident documents the adaptive use of information technology
to assist decision processes by a major voluntary organization. The earthquake
left an estimated 100,000 persons homeless. The Salvadorean Red Cross,
responsible for shelter and welfare during disaster, had to determine
how many people needed what type of assistance, and to establish a reliable
delivery system to provide timely service. Through the League of Red Cross
Societies, the Salvadorean Red Cross requested and received international
assistance. The Red Cross organizations initiated, for the first time
in international disaster operations, a house-to-house survey of families
in the damaged neighborhoods, seeking accurate information for the design
of their service delivery system. A staff member from the American Red
Cross organized and conducted the survey in San Salvador, using a personal
computer to create an organized knowledge base for the Red Cross project.
Additional computers and staff were needed to manage the database for this
operation.

Both incidents illustrate the interaction between technical and organizational
capacity in collective problem solving. The first led informed professionals
to propose the design of a continuing record of structural damage to
major buildings following earthquakes to support decision making in seismic
policy. In the second, Red Cross organizations turned to information technology
as a means of improving capacity to cope with the demand for timely, accurate
information in interjurisdictional service delivery, using resources from
several administrative levels to increase the efficacy of its problem solving
processes.

Ecuador, March 5, 1987 (M = 6.1, 6.9)

Different types of organizational skills were demonstrated in the two
Ecuadorian earthquakes that occurred, respectively, at 8:54 p.m. and 11:10
p.m., local time. Two instances of critical transmission of information
illustrate important consequences for organizational action in disaster
operations. The earthquake caused the collapse of a 40-kilometer section
of the Ecuadorian pipeline that transported oil from the eastern oilfields
in Lago Agrio to western coastal ports for export abroad. The collapse
of the pipeline disrupted the export of oil, which provided at least
50% of the national income, and severely affected the economy. The pipe
line problem was massive, interdisciplinary, and interorganizational.
Working with an array of technical facilities, information processing
skills and expertise, Ecuadorian and international policy makers agreed
on a technical design for rebuilding the pipeline and a plan for international
monetary assistance to finance the project within a period of weeks. For
the Ecuadorian Government, this agreement was facilitated by expertise
in information processing made available to the Department of Commerce
by the Information Computing Center at the Universidad Catolica de Quito.

The second incident illustrates the adaptation of communications technology
and the timely use of information to link four administrative levels of
voluntary organizations in an effective program of international disaster
assistance. Much of the damage from the 6.9-Richter-scale earthquake occurred
in small to moderate-sized towns and villages in the Andean Highlands.
In the province of Cayambe, north of Quito, few lives were lost, but tens
of thousands of people lost their homes and belongings. Already living
on marginal incomes, most of these people had few or no reserves with which
to rebuild their lives. Although official requests had been submitted,
the welfare of the citizens of Cayambe received little national attention,
as the Government was intensely preoccupied with the pipeline issue. The
mayor of the town of Cayambe, an engineering graduate from Stanford University
familiar with the role of communication in focusing attention on problems
requiring public action, called the principal newspapers in Quito and invited
them to come to the town, interview the residents and take pictures of
the damage. A day later, the major Quito newspapers carried full-page photo
spreads on the condition of quake-damaged Cayambe, and international as
well as national correspondents arrived to investigate the impact of the
earthquake on this provincial town. Four months later, in July, 1987, Cayambe
was heralded as an example of international cooperation in disaster assistance,
as seven international organizations had arranged to fund and build housing
in joint projects with the residents.

Both incidents illustrate adaptive behavior by organizations to the
sudden, adverse consequences of disaster. They indicate intelligent initiative
in terms of searching for available alternatives, and a willingness to
use the most current and accessible information technologies to produce
constructive action.

The advantages of training and technology were evident in the disaster
response operations for the two California earthquakes, Whittier Narrows
and Loma Prieta. Organizational response for the two earthquakes demonstrates
the strongest evidence among the seven cases of information technology
contributing to improved organizational performance. A moderate earthquake,
the Whittier Narrows Earthquake proved a sober exercise in disaster operations.
For the City of Los Angeles, disaster operations were largely over in four
hours, after the City Emergency Operations Center exercised its full emergency
assessment plan to determine the extent of damage to infrastructure, City
operations and residential areas.

The assessment plan included helicopter overflight, radio communications
and computer aided dispatch facilities for the City's Police and Fire Departments.
The Public Works Department had its own departmental radio communications
network that linked field crews, departmental offices, and the City Emergency
Operations Center. The City directed its emergency response activities
by using appropriate communications and information technology, facilitating
rapid action by a large, complex set of response organizations.

In eastern Los Angeles County, smaller cities closer to the epicenter
suffered more serious damage and continued to operate their Emergency Operations
Centers for two to three days. The City of Whittier introduced an innovation
that contributed substantially to integrating public, private, nonprofit
organizations and households in informed, responsible disaster operations.
The City opened a telephone "hot line" with direct access to
an information center at City Hall that provided current information from
city departments on the status of earthquake damage, the availability of
means of assistance, and the necessary steps to initiate damage assessment,
structural repair or to obtain assistance. Again, the City structured a
responsible pattern of interaction among community organizations that contributed
significantly to the community's capacity for recovery and reconstruction
by using available information and communications technology.

Two years later, evidence of organizational learning from the Whittier
Narrows event was noted in the response of Northern California organizations
to the Loma Prieta Earthquake. At 7.1 Richter scale, this earthquake was
ten times stronger than the Whittier Narrows event, and it left 63 dead
and property losses estimated at $7.1 billion. Disaster operations for
this earthquake were managed largely through local response; a surprising
result for an earthquake of this magnitude, but evidence of the increased
capacity of organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area to work together
cooperatively against a common threat. While some of the technology designed
for emergency communications failed -- for example, the computer went down
for the Alameda County emergen- cy information system, radio channels were
jammed, and telephone lines were overloaded -- new technologies were adapted
to meet the increased need for communication between emergency response
organizations. Pacific Bell, the regional telephone company, made cellu
lar telephones available to emergency response personnel, enabling them
to continue their work without technical interruption. The Region II Office
of the California Office of Emergency Services in Pleasant Hill, California,
created an informal electronic mail network to communicate directly with
participating emergency response organizations over dedicated telephone
lines. Regional administrators used the Loma Prieta event to document the
need for additional computers and submitted requests to the State Office
to meet emergency demands.

Organizational response to the two earthquakes in California demonstrated
a familiarity with information technology and timely action to extend its
use in organizational policy and practice.

Northern Armenia, December 7, 1988 (M = 6.9)

More than 25,000 people died in Northern Armenia, creating an overwhelmingly
difficult environment for disaster operations. The scale of this disaster
generated broad international assistance, and responding organizations
initiated a vivid illustration of the potential for a global inquiring
system. US and Armenian physicians, supported by satellite telecommunications
capacity contributed by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration,
designed and implemented a medical consultation service that operated
for four months to aid medical treatment of injured survivors (Ausseresses,
1990). The service was continued to assist with treatment of burn victims
from the train disaster at Ufa in June, 1989. The US-USSR Space Bridge,
as the operation was named, demonstrates the technical capacity to support
the development of an inquiring system directed toward reducing seismic
risk. Equally important, the cooperation engendered between US and Armenian
physicians in the implementation of this program has created a base of
experience, commitment to continued cooperation and international service
that will inform the next stages of international inquiry in reducing seismic
risk.

Costa Rica, April 22, 1991 (M = 7.4)

The potential for information technology to support decision processes
to minimize seismic risk is shown most recently following the Costa Rica
Earthquake. The earthquake left 58 dead in seismic activity that crossed
the border into Panama. The epicenter of the earthquake struck in a largely
uninhabited area, but the force of ground movement caused severe damage
in the port city of Limon, some 40 kilometers to the northeast, and to
villages and towns in the province. The Comision Nacional de Emergencia
(CNE -- National Emergency Commission) of Costa Rica had already initiated
plans to develop an advanced Geographic Information System (GIS) for the
entire nation, but when the earthquake occurred, the GIS was not sufficiently
advanced to support disaster operations. Without the GIS in place, it
was difficult to gather accurate information on the affected area, its
population and infrastructure to determine the extent of the damage. Staff
at the CNE quickly turned the disaster into an opportunity to record basic
information concerning the earthquake, entering data from the event into
the knowledge base for the GIS and creating the opportunity for feedback
of information gathered from actual disaster operations into future organizational
learning and performance.

These seven incidents indicate continuing inquiry into problems of
seismic risk at local, state/provincial, national and international levels.
While they represent only a trend, these incidents demonstrate the potential
of information technology to extend organizational problem solving capacity
in uncertain environments, and together point to an organizational readiness
to support its incorporation into disaster policy and practice.

This potential for improved decision support through information technology
was confirmed in practice during the last weeks of August, 1992, when meteorologists
from the National Hurricane Center in Dade County, Florida identified a
small storm forming off the west coast of Africa. Using current radar and
electronic weather-mapping techniques, they monitored the storm for five
days as it blew across the Atlantic Ocean, gaining strength and destructive
power. As Center staff reported the status of the tropical storm to the
news media, this information was transmitted over local, national, and
international television news. Warned of the impending storm, Governor
Lawton Chiles of Florida issued an evacuation order for cities and towns
of South Florida lying in the projected path of the storm. When the Category
5 hurricane slammed into the South Florida coast at 3:00 a.m. on Monday
morning, August 24, 1992, the large majority of residents were safely out
of the storm's way. The fact that only 27 deaths were initially reported
from a storm of that ferocity can be directly attributed to the advance
warning provided to the responsible policy makers through appropriate uses
of information technology.

In contrast, in 1969 Hurricane Camille claimed 256 lives in Mississippi
and the 1935 Labor Day hurricane in the Florida Keys killed 600 people.
The demonstrated capacity of information technology to assist policy
makers in making informed, timely policy decisions fundamentally alters
the design requirements for both the technical and organizational components
of crisis management. Conclusions and Recommendations.

In summary, the basic requirements for linking information technology
to structured organizational problem solving processes appear sufficiently
established to support the development of a prototype inquiring system
for the reduction of seismic risk. Such a prototype would build a set of
parallel technical and organizational systems designed to enhance community
capacity for solving problems related to seismic risk. Appropriate uses
of information technology can sharply reduce the incidence of death and
injury from earthquakes by facilitating a rational ecology of human sys
tems living in balanced, informed relationship with the natural seismicity
of the earth. Information, widely distributed and appropriately aggregated
with timely feedback processes, enables organizations to develop the
context, goals and capacity for timely action to reduce seismic risk.